THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: There was an increase in the number of job seekers registered with employment exchanges in 2023, according to the Economic Review 2022-23 released recently.
As per the ‘live register’ of employment exchanges in Kerala, the total number of job seekers till July 2023 was 28.6 lakh. The figure was 28.4 lakh on December 31, 2022. Contrary to the all-India scenario, women job seekers outnumbered men. Of the total job seekers in 2021 (up to July 31, 2023), 63.86 per cent were women.
Among all registrants, 6.5 per cent had qualifications below SSLC. About 93.5 per cent of the job seekers had qualifications of SSLC or above. The number of professional and technical job seekers as on July 31, 2023 was 2.5 lakh. 63.7 per cent of the total professional and technical job seekers were ITI certificate holders, diploma holders and engineering graduates. There were 45,932 registered engineering graduates, 8,308 medical graduates and 1,81,757 other professional candidates (those having PG second class and above, LLB, PhD, etc).
The district-wise details of job seekers as on July 31, 2023 showed that Thiruvananthapuram has the highest number of job seekers, followed by Kollam. The total number of job seekers in Thiruvananthapuram district was 4.6 lakh, of which 3 lakh were women and 1.6 lakh men. There were 3.3 lakh job-seekers in Kollam. The lowest number was in Kasaragod district - 0.8 lakh people.
In 2022, the placement through employment exchanges increased to 14,432 as against 10,705 candidates in 2021.